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Vanilla Ice Cream
Boil half a vanilla bean, cut in small pieces, in half a pint of rich new milk. When cool, strain and add to two quarts thick sweet cream. Sweeten with two heaping teacups powdered sugar, and whip to a stiff froth. Pour into a freezer, reserving one-fourth of the cream. As soon as it begins to freeze, stir from the sides with a large iron spoon, and beat hard. Add the remaining cream when it begins to sink. Beat every time the freezer is opened. When frozen, tie newspapers over the freezer and bucket, throw a blanket over them, and set in a close, dark place till the ice cream is wanted.--Mrs. S. T.
An eggless, Philadelphia-style ice cream written for a hand-crank churn packed in ice and rock salt. The custard-free base is forgiving; the mechanics are the part that needs translating.
- The measurementsHalf a pint of milk is one cup. Two quarts of cream is eight cups. A teacup of the period runs about six fluid ounces, so two heaping cups of sugar is roughly 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups by modern measure.
- "Powdered sugar" is not confectioners' sugarIn 1879 this meant granulated sugar ground fine, with no cornstarch in it. Use superfine or ordinary granulated sugar; modern confectioners' sugar will give a slightly chalky body.
- Don't boil the bean hardSplit the half bean, scrape the seeds into the milk, and bring it just to a simmer, then cover and steep off the heat for 30 minutes before straining. A rolling boil drives off the aromatics the milk is there to capture.
- Whipping the cream"Whip to a stiff froth" suits a churn that aerates poorly. In a modern machine, whip only to soft, barely-thickened peaks or skip it entirely -- fully whipped cream agitated in a freezer can break into butter grains.
- The freezerA wooden bucket with an inner canister, packed with crushed ice and rock salt at roughly three parts ice to one part salt. An electric churn does the same work; the instructions to open, scrape and beat are simply what the dasher now does continuously.
- Holding back a quarter of the creamThe recipe adds the reserve when the mixture "begins to sink", without saying why; it may have served to keep the stiffening mixture moving. With a modern machine, combine everything at the start and chill the base thoroughly before churning.
- Newspapers and a blanketThis is the ripening or hardening stage. Transfer to a covered container and hold in the freezer two to four hours, which firms the texture and lets the vanilla settle.
- YieldRoughly three quarts finished, or 12 to 16 servings. Halve it unless you are feeding a table.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree in 1879, is a book of signed contributions -- "Mrs. S. T." is one of the many Virginia housekeepers whose recipes Tyree collected, credited only by initials. Ice cream of this kind, made without eggs and frozen in a salt-and-ice bucket, is what is now called Philadelphia-style, and it depended entirely on a household having ice: cut from ponds in winter, packed in straw in an ice house, and hoarded through the Virginia summer. Vanilla beans were an expensive import, which is why half a bean is stretched through two quarts of cream by way of an infusion in milk. The closing instruction to wrap the freezer in paper and blankets and set it in a dark place is the whole reason the dish could appear at a dinner table at all -- there was no freezer to put it in, only insulation and speed.